Can I copy an entire news article from a commercial news web site and post the article on my web site?
The fair use doctrine, as currently interpreted by the courts, probably would not entitle you to do so. Even though news items are factual and facts themselves are not protected by copyright, an entire news article itself is expression protected by copyright. A court would apply the four factor fair use analysis to determine whether such a use is fair. In Los Angeles Times v. Free Republic, the court found that such a use was minimally — or not at all — transformative, since the article ultimately served the same purpose as the original copyrighted work. The initial posting of the article was a verbatim copy of the original with no added commentary or criticism and therefore did not transform the work at all. Although it is often a fair use to copy excerpts of a copyrighted work for the purpose of criticism or commentary, the copying may not exceed the extent necessary to serve that purpose. In this case, the court found that only a summary and not a complete verbatim copy of the wor
